Memory, the experience of the past brought forward to the present moment, is a bit like wearing augmented reality glasses. What was maybe similar to what is but colored differently. Walking down a street one night last week, where I was many years ago and lived for more than a decade, was an exceedingly odd experience. During the time I had lived on this street, very little changed—some of the shops had been there for eons. That night, as I recently walked those blocks, my mind was overlaying my memories of what it used to be like with the very different version I was currently experiencing. It was not so much nostalgia, although I did find myself reminiscing a bit; it was more like a sort of inner silence fell upon me. My brain was attempting to process radically new information that was sitting upon the scaffolding of my memories. The pavement and sidewalks were the same, the street names and subway stops unchanged, but the shops and the people were completely new. It was like being in a dream.
When we are experiencing the steady and predictable, a great deal of our capacity seems to go into “sleep” mode. When we are repeating what we have done many times, allotting any more than what is minimally needed of our brain’s energy to navigate would be wasteful. Novelty, however, expands our senses, and we become heightened in our sensitivity and emotional responses. This seems to be one of the huge benefits of travel; novelty, which opens spaces, allows us to think more expansively. When this happens in a place one thought one knew quite well, the effect is mildly hallucinatory.
Having a bigger hard drive of experience and information is one of the advantages of age. But it is also one of our liabilities. Just because someplace, something, or someone was one way, does not in any way mean that today it is the same. An idea or process that may have been common knowledge and served us well back then may not be so great today. As irritating as it may be to find ourselves having to relearn what we thought we knew so well, it is one of the reasons I find being with younger people valuable: They educate me about a different set of beliefs and norms than I may have thought were immovable. If I can engage with cultural changes with the same wonder I manage to do with physical spaces, I believe I will be better served. Wearing the past like a loose garment seems like a good goal.
Onward and upward,
David
